Tiny town is battered, not broken

BRANCHVILLE—A trackhoe sat in the splinters of Town Hall on Tuesday, picking up pieces of a century. Across the street, The Churn, "the heart and soul" of this tiny town, was a pile of concrete rubble.

Behind the rubble, Mayor Tim Cooner sat on a picnic table blinking, trying not to let it get to him. His grandfather built The Churn, the walk-up ice cream and hamburger stand that was the place to go for everybody in Branchville. In a little while, he would walk down the street, past the other crumbled stores, to stop the trackhoe as it cleared what had been his council chamber.

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Branchville Storm

Saturday's storms left their mark on the town Branchville, destroying many of the buildings in town including the Town Hall.

He wanted to find his gavel.

A 150-mph tornado tore apart this one-block downtown Saturday night, destroying or ruining 13 of 20 family-owned businesses. Town Hall, dating to 1901, "was blown all across Main Street," Cooner said. The double brick wall behind two of the oldest stores in town, dating to at least 1907, had "big ol' holes like a bone had popped it out," said resident Esther Jennings.

Three homes were destroyed, more than 30 damaged. All in a rural, feed-and-seed farm community of 1,200 people. Residents said it amazing no one was seriously hurt.

After storms tore through the state last weekend, the damage to a mobile home park in Goose Creek and the havoc in the Upstate caught most of the attention. Few realized the place that took the knockout blow was "in between," in the words of one emergency worker, in Orangeburg County just over the far northern Dorchester County line.

"The garden store, the grocery store, the hunting/fishing store, The Churn, the lumberyard, if we lose them we might just as well pull up the (town) sign," Cooner said. In most of those businesses or homes, the people don't have enough insurance to rebuild or have no insurance at all, he said.

"I don't want to make it sound like they're broke. But it's all they can do to pay the light bill, pay the help and pay for goods," he said. "It was an eerie feeling Saturday night, seeing the merchants standing out in the street in the dark, saying they don't know what is going to happen. Honestly, they don't know what to do."

Jennings, 78, born and raised in Branchville, put off coming downtown for two days. She couldn't face it. Her husband, James, is a World War II veteran, had two tanks shot out from under him in 30 months on the front. He told her downtown looked like a war zone.

But on Tuesday, she put on Easter finery and went down to the Community Center just past the ruins for a senior citizens' Easter program, Shamrock's Day and a birthday party for her sister, Frances Smith, 89. The ladies wore big hats with ribbons. The gentlemen wore suits. Melvina Abraham decorated her hat with multicolored plastic Easter eggs.

Up the street, the youth baseball teams played Monday night.

"Well, life goes on," Jennings said. "It's terrible, but it's God's will."

And in the centuries-old rural tradition, everyone is helping each other. Neighbors were looking after neighbors, owners of undamaged businesses offered the others the space they had. Shortly after the storm, Cooner was clearing Main Street to make sure emergency vehicles could get through. He turned to see a county councilman pulling bricks from the street by hand. Holly Hill Mayor Jim Jeffers came and swept the street.

No sooner than Cooner had set up a temporary Town Hall in the maintenance building than the phone started ringing. Orangeburg County and St. George, as well as Holly Hill, were sending crews. SCE&G moved in help. Other businesses brought in help or donations.

An Orangeburg church sent 40 volunteers, who were out clearing away debris from damaged homes. On Thursday, some Citadel cadets will be in town to help. More than 100 people were at work Tuesday.

"We're going to do our best to build to try to build it back, if our insurance will carry us that far," Johnny Dukes said about The Churn. His family owns the stand and the sentiment was echoed across town.

In a mobile command unit next to the rubble of Town Hall, John Smith, Orangeburg County emergency services director, was adding and re-adding the numbers. Damages so far came to just over $2 million, well short of the $5 million that is the benchmark for federal disaster assistance. The best he could hope for was that workers would find enough damage to qualify the town for low-interest loans.

"Branchville Junction" was a shambles, the old-timey, mock railroad village where the annual Railroad Daze celebration this year would have marked the town's 150th anniversary. Mayor Cooner on Tuesday ticked down the list of elected officials he intended to call.

"If we don't have the proper things to handle something like this, we need to get them in place. These are the people right here who helped build this state," he said. He'll continue a downtown streetscape improvement project. "If I stop that, what are these people going to think? I don't want anybody to have any doubt. We're coming back and we're going to come back bigger and stronger."

Not any doubt at all. Just that morning he had dug into the ruins of his 107-year-old Town Hall, to salvage the cornerstone.

Reach Bo Petersen at 745-5852 or bpetersen@postandcourier.com.